Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s first official trip to the United States, as reported by the media, is aimed at reaching agreements on a higher level of cooperation between Abu Dhabi and Washington in the context of preparing for the continuation of partnership relations between the two capitals within the framework of a new phase in the space of the geo-economic situation.
Senior officials cited by journalists said that the Middle Eastern state seeks to ensure that relations with the US are based on such factors as innovation and economic growth. The relevant statements were made on the eve of the meeting of the leaders of the two countries, which will be held on Monday, September 23, in Washington, D.C.
Anwar Gargash, the Emirati leader’s most senior diplomatic advisor, told reporters during a briefing held in Dubai last Thursday, September 19, that the purpose of the upcoming visit to the United States from the point of view of the UAE is to invest in the future through the prism of economics.
Sheikh Mohammed will discuss several topics during a meeting with United States President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, including issues that are relevant to the current state of affairs in the Middle East region, including the armed conflict in Gaza. At the same time, special attention will be paid to the discussion of economic issues. Anwar Gargash stated that Abu Dhabi is aimed at economic realignment. Currently, the UAE is striving to push relationships beyond the traditional focus on regional conflicts, the oil production sector, and the defense area. Anwar Gargash stated that the country is more in a geo-economic phase.
It is expected that during the upcoming meetings in the United States, the Emirati president will be largely focused on achieving goals related to expanding cooperation between countries in the already traditional sectors of the economy and security, and in the area of such advanced and always advanced industries as artificial intelligence, space, climate and renewable sources energy.
The Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, posted a message on his account on the social media platform X, which contains a statement that the leaders of the two countries will highlight the half-century development of the UAE-US partnership during their communication. In this context, it was also noted that few countries are implementing advanced technologies and artificial intelligence as quickly as the UAE. Separately, Yousef al-Otaiba drew attention to the close cooperation of the two mentioned states, which has a level of partnership characteristic of cooperation between not all countries with each other.
As for the prospects of the UAE in the artificial intelligence industry in the context of its global role in the relevant sector, in this case, there is a positive image of the future, which at the same time is still a preliminary vision, and not what can be described as an unconditionally realized reality. In February, OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman said that the mentioned country could become a global regulatory sandbox for testing machine intelligence. Also in April, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42, a local company specializing in artificial intelligence development.
Moreover, BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, Microsoft, and the Mubadala-backed MGX investment firm announced the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership. As part of this initiative, at the level of an official joint statement, it was noted that the UAE has a strategic focus on US technologies and artificial intelligence to ensure future economic growth.
It is worth noting that the current goal setting of Abu Dhabi in the context of the vision of scenarios of its own development as a system, which is a kind of complex of the cumulative impact of many factors, and within the framework of the local ideology of the evolution of the country as a space with many dimensions, including economic, social and so on, is an example of the significant importance of AI. In this case, artificial intelligence is considered by the authorities as a source of growth. It is worth clarifying that in the appropriate context, growth should be interpreted as an upward trajectory of economic development. With a high degree of probability, over time, the digital mind will increasingly be considered by governments as a platform for the qualitative evolution of the country. This tendency is highly logical, since the potential of artificial intelligence is huge, starting from its use as a production tool and ending with its probable existence as a factor of fundamental impact on processes that are carried out in the cultural environment. It is possible that at some point in its evolution, AI will become a source of transformation of the world as a matter of the being of human civilization. If the corresponding futurological vision becomes an objective reality, no one will be able to ignore artificial intelligence. At the same time, it is worth noting that this is not an alarmist forecast about certain machines that enslaved people. In the context of the mentioned vision, it is implied that artificial intelligence will become the unconditionally main technology of human civilization.
During his visit to Washington, Sheikh Mohammed is expected to hold meetings with the main business leaders of the United States and tech executives. According to media reports, the purpose of these meetings will be to reinforce the UAE’s goal of raising US investments.
It’s worth noting that Abu Dhabi also maintains investment and diplomatic relations with Beijing. In this context, it is appropriate to mention that chip curbs were introduced against the UAE by the Joe Biden administration. Washington made the appropriate decision due to concerns related to the potential likelihood that the UAE will share US technology with China.
At the same time, the mentioned episode does not cancel the history of Abu Dhabi-Washington relations in the past, present, or future. The two capitals cooperate in areas of investment and trade. Data from the UAE Embassy in Washington shows that last year the financial volume of bilateral trade between the two countries amounted to about $31.4 billion. US exports to the UAE for the corresponding period exceeded the $28.4 billion mark.
Also, in the context of cooperation between the two countries, the investment aspect is significant. Currently, the UAE has investments in the US, the total amount of which is $1 trillion. The UAE sovereign wealth funds including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala are the largest sources of financial injections into sectors in the partner country such as real estate, technology, and infrastructure.
Abu Dhabi actively cooperates with Washington in the areas of defense and security. For example, the UAE, which accounts for about 4% of the world’s oil reserves, is playing host to the American air base in Al Dhafra. The countries’ partnership also extends to joint actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The interaction between Abu Dhabi and Washington concerns the fight against international terrorism. The UAE is an important political center in the context of impacting processes within the framework of regional conflicts. In this case, events in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan are also implied.
Anwar Gargash says that Abu Dhabi is currently forming an action plan for the next 20 years in the context of cooperation with Washington.
The UAE currently perceives artificial intelligence as a factor or, in a certain sense, a trigger for economic growth and technological development. At the same time, with a high degree of probability, very soon, in terms of symbolic distances of what can be called historical time, which is much larger than the average duration of human life, AI will become the object of what corresponds to the conditional concept of the political universe. Artificial intelligence is a source of very strong force. In this case, it means technological power, which, within the framework of the specifics of the current stage of the material development of human civilization, already determines and with a high degree of probability will continue to determine the appearance of the world in the future. Naturally, governments of all countries will not leave such a source of transformation outside their attention. The corresponding assumption is consistent with the principles of what can be called the generally conventional logic of statecraft. At the same time, there is still no clear understanding of the scale of the regulatory practice in the artificial intelligence industry. Currently, it is impossible to give a definitive answer to the question of the limits of machine intelligence capabilities. It is worth noting that the issue of regulating artificial intelligence belongs to the category of some kind of ethical problems and topics for discussion in the context of security. This specificity is explained by the fact that AI interacts with people and can know a lot about them, and by the fact that in this case there is a source of force, the scale of which is not known for certain. At the same time, artificial intelligence has the potential to qualitatively transform the concept of economic growth with a high probability of a significant positive result. Given this circumstance, it can be assumed that in the future governments will face a difficult issue about the balance between the material and financial benefits from the functioning of AI systems and providing protection against potential threats that the digital mind can theoretically generate. The UAE’s desire for active efforts in the artificial intelligence industry is a hint at the likelihood of such a situation being in reality.
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